Rutherford’s Alpha-Particle Scattering Experiment

... Rutherford's Alpha-Particle Scattering Experiment Early Views of the Atom i. Around 400 BC a Greek scientist called Democritus said that matter was made up of small particles he named 'Atoma' (meaning indivisible). ii. In 1804 John Dalton stated that matter consisted of tiny solid balls he called 'Atoms'. Backdrop of Rutherford's Experiment At the turn of the century, there was little known about atoms except that they contained electrons. J. J. Thompson discovered the electron in 1897, and there was considerable speculation about where these negatively charged particles existed in nature. Matter is electrically neutral; some positive charge must balance the charge of the electron. These was what the scientist thought at that time. One popular theory of the time was called the 'plum-pudding model'. This model, invented by Thompson, envisioned matter made of atoms that were spheres of positive charge spiked with electrons throughout. Electrons were chunks of plum distributed

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